British View on Japanese Army
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 มิ.ย. 2024
- So, what did the British think about the Japanese Army from before the Second World War started? This is of particular interest, since the British suffered a humiliating defeat by the Japanese Army in the Malayan Campaign (1941-1942), which lead to the fall of Singapore (1942). This video looks at major events that shaped British Views on the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA), namely the Shanghai Incident (1932) and the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945).
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» SOURCES «
Ferris, John: “Worthy of Some Better Enemy?”: The British Estimate of the Imperial Japanese Army 1919-41, and the Fall of Singapore. In: Canadian Journal of History, August 1993, p. 223-254.
Ford, Douglas: British Intelligence on Japanese Army Morale during the Pacific War: Logical Analysis or Racial Stereotyping? In: The Journal of Military History, Vol. 69, No. 2 (April 2005), p. 439-474.
Ford, Douglas. Britain's Secret War Against Japan, 1937-1945. Routledge: London, 2006.
Drea, Edward J.: Japan’s Imperial Army. Its Rise and Fall, 1853-1945. Kansas University Press, USA: 2009.
Ness, Leland; Shih, Bin: Kangzhan - Guide to Chinese Ground Forces 1937-45. Helion & Company: : Solihull, UK, 2016.
Fennell, Jonathan: Fighting the People’s War. The British and Commonwealth Armies and the Second World War. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, 2019.
Peattie, Mark (Ed.); Drea, Edward (Ed.); Ven, Hans van de (Ed.): The Battle of China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945. Stanford University Press: 2010.
Symonds, Craig L.: The Battle of Midway. Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK, 2011
#Japanese #WW2 #British
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Pardon the language but HOW IN THE FUCK did the western (white) world get these bizarre pseudo-scientific ideas about limitations/specific inferior characteristics of Asians and Africans? Fernology?!?! Some random ultra biased "standardized test"? I mean, there had to be some kind of a joke psuedo-science behind this right? I can see general racism but these oddly specific things like "poor night vision", "inability to handle high g forces" and things like that, they didn't just pull that stuff out of their asses, right?
I still can't get over the fact how perfect it is that when you say crowdfunding it sounds like Krautfunding
@@22steve5150 they did lol but literally every country had racist views at the time including Japan
What is considered to be the most damaging in war:
1. Underestimating the opponent's capability?
2. Overestimating the opponent's capability?
3. Overestimating your own capability?
4. Underestimating your own capability?
And or what combinations are considered to be most damaging in war?
Who would of thought a racist brittish empire.The Ghurkas only recently recived g.b.citizenship,pension rights tenish years ago.and with that distinguished c.v.
Your hair didn't perish, it just regrouped and fortified your chin
LMAO
I can't tell whose head is shinier, him or Karl Pilkington.
It staged an orderly withdrawl from battle line 'Hair' (popularly known as _'The Hair-LIne'_ ) in order to organise a 'defense in depth' stategy by consolidating fortified positions along 'phase line Chin' (aka the 'softy underbelly' of his cranium. )
This was a good laugh thanks mate
it kind of ...slipped
Japan: "we are the land of the rising sun"
Britian: "you guys have sun rises?"
Don’t think most people are smart enough to know what you meant.
@@gunbutter830 Really? Damn, I would've thought the opposite since the quote "the sun never sets in the British empire" is pretty famous and widely known
@@Totalgamerz112 obviously not since there were only 4 likes in 4 months. It should have sparked more.
@@Totalgamerz112 That phrase was an Spanish thing first.
"we don't have such weaknesses"
I would be very interested in a video how the Austrian army was integrated into the Wehrmacht.
there is a video of that in this very Channel
@@Mitaka.KotsukaCan't find such a video on the channel please link
I am want to see it
@@Sofus. Search for the Anchluss topic
th-cam.com/video/4p_i0PxKdoA/w-d-xo.html
@@Mitaka.KotsukaIt's not the same topic
My Grand Father, if still alive, would agree totally with everything in this video. He was a regular when Japan attacked, slated to deploy in North Africa, instead diverted to defend Australia in 1941. He said they were totally Euro-centric in training, the Japanese were considered totally inferior 'short sighted, short, would not be able to shoot straight'. Instead he said his battalion encountered Imperial Marines recruited in Japan's North '6ft plus and certainly could shoot!'. Training and organization in the Australian Army in1941 was still the same as in 1914. As the video points out, they were defeated in the opening campaigns because of a combination of obsolete tactical doctrine, underestimation of Japanese capability and darn right racism. Imperial forces in 1941 may not have been as modern as the Whermacht, but Commonwealth forces were worse! Remembering that when Japan attacked in 1941, we had lost the battles of France, Norway, Greece, Crete, Tobruk. Ironically my Grand Father felt that Japan attacking saved his life! Such was the bleakness of deployment to Europe! He served until 1945 demobbed a decorated Commando.
100%! The Allies flattered themselves by thinking the Japanese were too afraid and incompetent to attack. The Allies said the Japanese were not first class because they hadn't finished off China conveniently discarding their own defeats in the places you mention. They said the Japanese were tired and bogged down yet never considered their own limitations like strategic overstretch. Not only military incompetence, also political. They sent hardly any proper war technology like decent planes and no tanks! These were the backbone of modern war, the Allies thought they were fighting the Dervish. Furthermore the soldiers on the ground were unable to adapt their tactics to the battle being fought, such as basic tactics like outflanking. Can you imagine the Wehrmacht not finding the flexibility to quickly adapt? Me neither.
I think you make a good point about the to litany of land defeats and their impact on morale (aside from Beda Fom and O'Connor's offensive), especially too when it was learned the RN wouldn't be arriving and the BBs sent had already been sunk.
@@Noid111 The belief on supply limitations turned out to be true though. Yamashita later wrote he was constantly short of supplies and if he hadn't kept capturing British stockpiles would have to pull back and retrench and even in the final invasion of Singapore he was winging and had to bully Percival into surrendering as the Japanese were only down to a few days left of food and arms.
@@ElGrandoCaymano yamashita was offered 3 divisions for the invasion but was confident he could win with 2. Pownal on Dec 8th said Singapore had no chance. Singapore wasn't really that important strategically. The British could've nullified the whole raison d'etre of invasion if they had destroyed the naval base. Wilson in 1920 said in some future war it would be scooped up by the Japanese. Funnily enough jungle fighting wasn't the main reason the Japanese won. They only used the jungle for minor tactical outflanking. The main drive was along the western side of Malaya using the excellent roads. When everything was said and done Britain didn't have the forces available. They had to keep the majority of them for home and north Africa especially as it looked like the Soviet Union might capitulate. People talk that 90000 troops surrendered but about a third of them only arrived a few weeks before the surrender. Instead of sending lightly equipped troops it would have been better if they'd sent tanks and modern fighters. Similar troops but lavishly equipped forces destroyed the Japanese just 2 years later in Burma.
"Training and organisation in the Australian Army was the same in 1941 as in 1914." Bullshit! In 1914 the infantry company was composed purely of riflemen armed solely with rifle and bayonet. They had no grenades or light machine guns as they had not yet been invented. Nor had tanks or combat aircraft been invented - aircraft in 1914 could barely support the weight of the crew. The only heavy weapons in the battalion were 2 Vickers medium machine guns.
In contrast by 1918 the infantry company was equipped with hand grenades, rifle grenades and a Lewis light machine gun per platoon. "So effective was this (Lewis) gun as a platoon weapon that the British (and Australian) infantry was reorganised in 1917 along functional lines: the Lewis was treated as the main weapon of the platoon, whose role was to support its machine guns and grenade throwers rather than simply to act as 40 men with rifles and bayonets." (Gordon Corrigan "Mud, Blood and Poppycock").
The 1918 battalion now had its own artillery in the form of a Stokes mortar platoon, and was skilled in combined arms warfare in cooperation with tanks and aircraft. These tactics remain essentially the same in 2020 as in 1918, only the weapons have been updated. The major difference is that the availability of portable radios enables today's infantry to call for artillery and air support in a way that a 1918 soldier could not. I could expound on the changes in artillery and combat aircraft but you get the picture - every major weapon system in use today was introduced between 1914 and 1918 and the tactics were changed accordingly.
In 1941 the major changes were that the infantry platoon now had its firepower augmented by a Thompson submachine gun and a 2-inch mortar while the Lewis was replaced by the Bren which was less susceptible to stoppages. The major change in organisation and tactics came in 1942-43 following the experience of fighting in New Guinea when the battalions were slimmed down and lightened and jungle tactics adopted.
Let's be fair to the British, they were not the only ones underestimating the Japanese. Douglas MacArthur did not flair well either in his defense of the Philippines of 1941. He had even more troops, tanks and aircrafts at his disposal than the British had in the Malayan campaign, and also the time to prepare for the Japanese invasion. He was still crushed by the Japanese. The only difference was that Percival stayed with his troops while MacArthur left his men behind.
Exactly!!!! Thank you honestly Singapore is just a scapegoat because if people just talk about Singapore then no one talks about the humiliating defeat in the Philippines. But I do respect MacArthur for going back and retaking the Philippines.
Two US tank battalions equipped with 108 M3 light tanks arrived at the Philippines from San Francisco 3 months before the war started. MacArthur actually had more tanks under his command than the Japanese had throughout the whole campaign. He just didn't know how to use them effectively. Nor was MacArthur relying air support from Pearl Harbor. He had a total of 277 warplanes stationed in the Philippines by 1st December 1941, consisting of 35 B-17 heavy bombers, 175 fighters (107 of these were P-40E Curtiss Warhawks). MacArthur did manage to lose half of his airplanes on the ground at Clark Field in the first 12 hours after the Japanese began attacks, despite advanced warnings from Pearl Harbor that the Japanese attacks were on their way to the Philippines and early warning from the radars at Clark Field itself. Nor was MacArthur only taking up his command days before the Japanese landed. He took the job as field marshal of the philippines 6 years before the war started with the specific task to train up the Filipino army and he obviously failed. MacArthur was destined to fail in the defense of the Philippines in 1941, not because of the US government failing to support him, but by his own incompetence.
To be fair, I don't think leaving was his decision. Though I could be wrong.
@@cheshire4856 MacArthur was ordered to leave Bataan by President Roosevelt. This is well known. MacArthur was overrated in his time and over-hated now by every arm chair general.
I feel like people forget the difficulty of defending a large area in general, let alone a massive archipelago.
I’m not excusing either loss, but you have to realize the Japanese were able to choose where to focus their applied force whereas the allies just had to react(usually too late).
Without proper naval support they were always going to be on the backfoot in a sense of mobility, provisionally, and numerically.
You can have 4 times the manpower of your opponent but if you can only bring small portions of your force to a fight at any given time your kind of screwed.
You know what I mean? Divide et impera
The Russo-Finnish war caused Germany to underestimate the Red Army just as the Sino-Japanese wars caused the Brits to underestimate the IJN. 20/20 hindsight: both the Finns and Chinese were more effective than anyone had thought + defense of one's homeland tips the scales.
In some ways the Germans and British were right, but they both missed very key points. In the German case, they overlooked the fact that the Red Army actually outlasted the Finnish one despite taking such heavy losses. They were right about the Red Army's organization problems. The British were right that the Chinese army was not incredibly effective overall, but gravely underestimated how effective the Japanese were.
In reality chinese army use civilian as meatshield or just use teritoty that neutral to japanese to fire upon japanese army and japanese cant fire back at them due to it might be an excuse for another country to join the war againstthem plus Chinese have far more number than IJA with some equipment from german as well
@Jose Raul Miguens Cruz nah if japanese gone berserk and full fire at all moveable target chinese wouldn't stand a chance but then again as my last reply it would have creating more enemies for japan
Also fun fact that chinese died by thier own people more than japanese same goes to the soviet
Also japan made a very wrong move at being enemies with the soviet and it cost a huge amount of army that should have use to finishing china
@Jose Raul Miguens Cruz Arguable, as the Finnish managed to halt the Soviets in 1944 and remained independent unlike a lot of the USSR’s neighbors. The Finnish also had a severe numerical disadvantage, which is inverted for the Chinese, so per capita the Fins were more effective. Finland also did not lose major population centers despite them being quite close to the Soviet border.
@Jose Raul Miguens Cruz Mao wasn't attacked in Shaanxi. The Japanese took Taiyuan and the rails and ignored the rest of the province.
Singapore siege was a spectacular display of incompetence from the British Army, probably the worst defeat during the war, even worse than Dunkerque
@公爲下天 Oh. no no, the Japanese did in fact do well, but in this case the Brits really helped them.
@公爲下天 is not about rascism, is about the fortress we are talking (Singapur, expected to be the major fortress in all east asia) and the balance between armies 85k(defend) vs 36k(attack) is also known that there is always a defensive factor 3:1... so... why the brithish lost? we can say because BANZAI but the fact still harrass the rep of britain 70 years after because you know, any japanese (and probable any other nation) would have won that battle EASY... well there are 3 factors, 1, they didnt have the info we have todday, 2 they overestimated their own capabilities, and 3 they were fighting the Japanese army wich one of the caracteristics is prescisely (and no one seem took note of these) always fight aganisst odds
Dunkerque was rather well done though, considering the circumstances. If anything, the british were very good at running away 'intact' during the first years of the war^^
But I agree that the battle for Malaya was a spectacular display of incompetence, but not so much on behalf of the armed forces as the commanders. The soldiers did their best (as they often do regardless of country or commander), but it's only so much they can do when commanders keeps retreating and leaves huge holes in the defences.
@@lavrentivs9891 well, the brits were not expecting to fight at dunquerque, the primary objective of the generals at the time was evacuate, not to fight
@@Mitaka.Kotsuka And they evacuated much better than expected.
I'd be interested in an assessment of the 1939 Soviet Japanese border conflict in Manchuria.
Same
Also the invasion of Manchuria in 1945.
An excellent book that covers this is Alexander Hill, THE RED ARMY AND THE SECOND WORLD WAR, Cambridge University Press, 2017, Ch.5
A key thing to remember is that the British tended to move less competent generals to empire posts away from the Mid-east and Europe during the early years of the war. David Belcham mentioned this in 'All in a Days March" when he discusses his time as Montgomerys chief of staff. A lot of Generals who had good political connections and were economically expedient during the interwar period ( men that opposed mechanisation and favoured Calvary and traditional modes of warfare) couldn't simply be sacked. When, in the early campaigns of the war, it was clear these men were not on the right side of History, they posted to India and the far east. Much was made of this by Americans and Australians at the time. They were viewed as colonial "gin soaks" and playboys with connections in Whitehall...."Colonel Blimps". This is, I think, in the main why Britain suffered huge setbacks in this theatre. Some historians and military men like Liddel Hart and Belcham have written about this, but it tends to be brushed under the carpet in official historys. The defence of Singapore had been a mainstay of British Imperial policy for decades and the force there was large enough and amply resourced to resist the quite modest Japanese force.
That is possibly the largest factor in the surrender at Singapore. The British Army was well trained, well equipped, well motivated and wholly competent. The general staff on the other hand betrayed their own army, and the whole of Malaya and Singapore with their deep stupidity and racism, a military and humanitarian disaster. Voltaire said it well; Percival should have been given the same treatment as Admiral Byng.
But Percival was, in peacetime, regarded as amongst the best British generals. He was a brave and able officer in WW1 and reportedly excelled in inter-War exercises. His failure to adapt to the reality of the Japanese attack was realised too late. He was thought very able however and would not have been given command in Singapore and Malaya had it been otherwise.
@@rrobb9853 Regarded by whom? Who considered him very able? Certainly the younger staff officers...the likes of Auchinleck, O'Conner, Richie and Monty didnt hold him in high regard in the 30s and he was viewed as someone who received promotion because he was not a demanding officer. This was common in the French army also but when imperial defence was cut to the bone in early 30s men who were happy to "make do" and not rock the boat enjoyed fast promotion. This is not a contentious point. In any case, its not simply about the man in over all command (we are not talking about the armies of antiquity here)....he was seen as competent because he had a long history and association with the posting and command in question which, for the reasons mentioned above, is not necessarily an indictment on his ability. Pinning the greatest disaster in British military history on Percival alone is rash but, still...he was no O'Conner. However, even if he were, he would have been handed a staff command of men who, for one reason or another, may not have been deemed suitable for the war in the Middle East and Europe. There many have been the odd good planner and devoted logistical in the command, but, it has been well documented that the British posted more often than not, poor staff officers with good connections in Whitehall to distant posts.
@@oliver8928 soldiers only perform well under great commanders, when bill slim reorganised the british army it was better than ever
Pretty sure most troops at Singapore werent fully trained, with some units not being at full capacity. It wasn't expected for Singapore to hold actually, at least by the officers there.
From Wikipedia:
"Only one of the Indian battalions was up to numerical strength, three (in the 44th Brigade) had recently arrived in a semi-trained condition, nine had been hastily reorganised with a large intake of raw recruits, and four were being re-formed but were far from being fit for action. Six of the United Kingdom battalions (in the 54th and 55th Brigades of the 18th Division) had only just landed in Malaya, and the other seven battalions were under-manned. Of the Australian battalions, three had drawn heavily upon recently-arrived, practically-untrained recruits. The Malay battalions had not been in action, and the Straits Settlements Volunteers were only sketchily trained. Further, losses on the mainland had resulted in a general shortage of equipment."
There's also the whole Automadon thing.
"On 11 November 1940, the German raider Atlantis captured the British steamer Automedon in the Indian Ocean, which was carrying papers meant for Air Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, the British commander in the Far East, which included much information about the weakness of the Singapore base.[13] In December 1940, the Germans handed over copies of the papers to the Japanese.[13] The Japanese had broken the British Army's codes and in January 1941, the Second Department (the intelligence-gathering arm) of the Imperial Army had interpreted and read a message from Singapore to London complaining in much detail about the weak state of "Fortress Singapore", a message that was so frank in its admission of weakness that the Japanese at first suspected it was a British plant, believing that no officer would be so open in admitting weaknesses to his superiors, and only believed it was genuine after cross-checking the message with the Automedon papers."
One contributing factor to the lack of training and general languor of the British in Malaya before the outbreak of war may simply be the climate. Having been to the jungle in Borneo, as a teenager on holiday, I can attest that you don’t go out into it unless you have a good reason. Especially if you’re from rainy, grey England. It’s incredibly hot; the rainforest is dense and hard to navigate; and a lot of things in it bite and scratch, or can straight-up kill you (the centipedes; oh god, the centipedes). I imagine the colonial officers didn’t really want to deal with that too regularly.
Our guide when were in the jungle had actually fought the Japanese, back in the day. He was half-native and half-English, knew the land like the back of his hand, and had stories to tell. Guy must have been in his 80s, but he was still spry as anything and striding around the jungle faster than me. Apparently he had been sent to rally his mother’s tribe (among others) to fight the IJA after they invaded, which wasn’t hard because the Japanese were…shall we say, unfriendly to the locals. He didn’t let on much about his actual exploits during the war, but what he did say was fascinating. Wish I’d had a tape recorder.
Also fighting in the Jungle is incredibly difficult, and requires specialised doctrines and skill sets in and of itself. I spent a month in a central American Jungle training recently, even with regular supply, decent modern meals, and no actual threat to life beyond the flora and fauna I lost 12kg. I think there was a general view in the British Army that keeping a modern force going in the Jungle was so difficult as to be impossible, which certainly would have made a difference in Singapore.
AFAIK British Army Jungle Doctrine really only developed after the fall of Singapore and Malaya, specifically because the Japanese where operating in the Jungle and, not only proving it could be done, but therefore demanding that the British and Commonwealth forces do it too.
@The Colonel except that until then fighting in the jungle was just not practiced and for very good reasons. So its not as mad as it seems with hindsight.
@The Colonel fighting in china and fighting in malaya where two very different things however. Sticking to the roads was effectively necessary for troops that where not jungle trained, as the japanese losses to the jungle eventually proved. Easily passable is a colossal understatement, and time and time again the jungle would take its toll on I'll prepared troops during the war.
Keeping to the roads may have been viewed as too restrictive, but honestly, prior to WW2 it was sensible, and I honestly doubt any troops would genuinely have been happy to be sent into the trees.
Also worth noting the Ardennes where not viewed as impossible, that's a myth, but the French underestimated the speed and strength that the Wehrmacht moved through them with, and overestimated their own ability to react.
@The Colonel the difference in terrain between the jungle and Belgium shouldn't be understated. Jungle is extremely difficult even for modern light infantry to operate in.
The japanese soldiers didnt like the jungle no. They got lost, starved, their skin rotted, their supplies couldn't find them. The difference was that the Japanese command just didnt care. It wasnt they where prepared to take risks, it was they where prepared to take consequences, and decimate their own force if that was what was needed.
Of course the allies didnt see those consequences in the IJA until after the war, the perception was that the japanese where at home in the jungle, which in turn spurred the british on to try to learn to fight the way they perceived the Japanese to fight, which in turn gave rise to a sort of sustainable jungle doctrine (up to a point).
@The Colonel i dont think it is. The Japanese where happy to include risks up to and including the starvation of their army, as was demonstrated at Kohima and Impahl. Even in Malaya it came at cost, and they where lucky that nothing went wrong for them there.
Excellent discussion of the topic - thank you👍
So what Graziani was to Italy’s army in North Africa, Percival was to the British in the Asian theater.
I think to be fare to Percival, he was aware of Nanking and Amsterdam, he wanted to avoid civilian suffering as he saw it, and he could not know the Japanese were out of ammunitions too and would have broken off within a day themselves. He was a general not a fortune teller, and when you defend a city from siege your responsibilities are bigger than just military. I'm not saying he was right or that there were not outright mistakes made, but it was hard to be him right there with all that. And the deal he got was not so much worse than other generals in history, the real trouble with Singapore is the actions of other Japanese commanders after Yamashita left.
More like Bastico. Percival was dealt a very bad hand by Brooke-Popham and never had to deal with the likes of Heath or Gordon Bennett!
Maybe we need the Japanese view on the British Army.
Well at first apparently they respected us and thought it would take months to take Hong Kong and Malaya and then they thought we were cowards and that’s why they attempted to invade India in 1944 and lost badly and they don’t think we were cowards after that
@@commando4481 your best troops were fighting Rommel in Africa. And like the Americans, they didn't think the Japanese had the ingenuity or the balls to pull it off. Both the UK and the USA suffered severely initially for the beliefs.
Also the Japanese were allies with the British in the previous war. The fought side-by-side taking territory from the Germans in China. The Japanese thought they did all the work, and the British took all the credit.
Rob M. That’s something that bothers me America lost just as badly in the Philippines
@@commando4481 yeah. Unfortunately things were just as bad for the Americans. A war game a year or two before Pearl harbor, a maverick office played as the Japanese. He was suppose to be attacking the Philippines, and the US Navy was suppose arrive like the US Calvary to reinforce MacAuther. This officer had different plans. In the opening rounds, he attacked Pearl Harbor with all the Carriers known in the Japanese fleet. Destroyed the Navy completely, and invaded the Hawaiian islands.
The Admirals playing on the US Navy protested fowl. That the Japanese would never do that, because they were not capable enough to carry it out. Boy, we were fools too.
This isn't about the Japanese military, but I recall reading one British historian who characteized war elephants as classic "Eastern" tools of war, relying on fear and spectacle over training. I can't help but wonder if the British had access to elephants during medieval times and employed them, if they would instead be considered by British historians as "weapons of mobility, able to achieve decisive tactical breakthroughs. The precurser of the modern tank." I certainly think there can be some cultural bias in these evaluations.
Well even in ancient times the elephant was considered of dubious value and only really worked against those who had never faced them before.
@@lavrentivs9891 And then provided an equal threat to your own troops once they panicked. Putting elephants on the battlefield is...well... like putting elephants on the battlefield.
@@lavrentivs9891 If the elephant is made the charge into an otherwise unbeatable phalanx and totally scatters it, that's amazing. But one spear it the elephant in the eye and now the elephant dies of sepsis or refuses to ever charge such a formation again... what's the conclusion? The elephant was effective until suddenly it wasn't any more.
Whatever the effectiveness of elephants their cost was huge. They can't be quickly bred in large numbers like horses and they're expensive to maintain. They were a luxury and they would still be lost in battle no matter how effective. They have no analogy to modern conflicts but in ancient conflicts they'd appear and before anyone really could base a strategy around them all the elephants were dead and there wouldn't be any replacements for a generation.
It seems they were effective, but just not worth all the cost and certainly couldn't be scaled up.
You can ramp up production of tanks, ships, guns, aircraft and so on, but you can't ramp up production of war elephants. Generations of work building up a small group of tame elephants can be lost in a single short campaign regardless of how effective they were.
@@Treblaine You forgot to mention their notoriously tender feet, which especially the romans was quick to exploit by deploying caltrops when fighting them. A cheap and simple counter^^
@@Treblaine It is precisely the inability to mass produce elephants that made them effective. They were rare so it would be very common that most armies would never have fought them before and they could see as an advertisement of prestige on the battlefield, much like American Battleships on V-J Day.
That thumbnail is absolutely beautifull, love the artwork!
Extremely good detail and well explained.
This was a very well done and sourced video and I very much enjoyed it!
The obvious implication is hubris and racism took many British officers from taking the Japanese as a serious threat. From other sources I've read British forces in Malaya were a bit too concerned about soldiers having all their brass buckles and the like well polished rather than training in fighting in the local environment as well. -I apologize for not being able to find which book I read that in.
Funniest thing I ever heard was that the British thought the Japanese wouldn't have an air Force because they're people were too small to reach the pedals of an aircraft. Not assuming the Japanese will build aircraft to fit there own people. LMAO
Another one was they'd make bad pilots due to being carried on their mothers backs as children
I'm having a very hard time believing this.
SouthParkCows88 Any tangible sources for that? Or is it just something you heard somewhere at some point?
South Park - sounds like you made that up. But with a user name like yours, it's to be expected.
Coiled Steel yeah tell em. Bad username = wrong.
Very informative! Thanks!
You posted another excellent video. What a shock. ( I think I have watched every video you made) I dont think you ever posted a video that was not excellent. I am surprised you did not post a video about the American assessment of the Japanese IJN & IJA WITH this video.Will you talk about Mac Arthur's FAILURES in 1941??? or Will you examine the MacArthur/ Truman relationship from 1917 to 1953?? Again, You produce great content Your videos are always provocative and forthrite.
William Sheehan’s 2005 book “British voices” devotes an entire chapter to two lectures given by AE Percival, then a Major, while stationed in my native Ireland, interesting read.
"Give me ten thousand Filipinos and I shall conquer the world”
- Douglas MacArthur, the guy in command of tens of thousands of American soldiers and a hundred thousand Filipino soldiers. Also the same guy who was tramped by a smaller Japanese force.
Jesus lmao
MacArther was a hugely overrated General. If not for his mistakes in 1941, the American/Fillipino forces could have held out for far longer than they did.
My dad was in the pacific theater during the war. He hated McArthur.
@@richardm3023 Yup, he was rubbish
MacArthur was only good at propaganda. As a military man and as a human being, he was a piece of shit. He was the American Bernard Montgomery.
As always this is simply brilliant. !
Yamashita was probably THE BEST field commander of any nation in WWII. He took Malaya and Singapore with FEWER troops than the IJA wanted him to take, because he understood supply. For the opposite, see Rommel.
@Filip Smaić Rommel also ignored his logistics in search of a knockout blow. His dash to the wire was ill conceived given the balance of power and his logistical problems. It broke DAK for no real strategic gain.
Kurbayashi, and Ozawa were good leaders too, way better than overrated Yamamoto to be honest.
@@ivan5595 what made Yamamoto in your eyes overrated
He's severely underrated solely because he's Japanese. He was also spectacular in honoring the code and his own commands/policies such as no rape, loot, or arson. He was famous for executing many of his own men that broke this policy, or committed a war crime.
After the war was over, Yamashita kicked MacArthur's ass so bad that MacArthur vetoed the innocent verdict on General Yamashita solely out of spite. Everyone in the trial knew Yamashita was innocent. They tried him for crimes that some of his men supposedly did while he wasn't informed of it at all. The proof of those "men committing war crimes" is also very lack luster and very possibly forged.
You only need to watch the film Letters from Iwo jima to understand that even at a late stage in the war their was conflict within the senior ranks as to platoon battle tactics I myself was in the British army during The Falklands dispute Our training platoon assaults immediately changed soon after
British: we are a superior army.
Japanese: you're gonna be my
Biaatch.
Picture of the British officer with tea cup at the beginning is hilarious! Good video.
Maybe a sinikar analysis of what each thought about the other's Navy would be an interesting topic
This British defeat reminds me of the Italian defeat early on in the North African Campaign. They outnumbered the Japanese 3 to 1 and still tapped out.
They are similar and there were many brave soldiers in both campaigns, but weren’t the Italians in North Africa fighting with tankettes, biplanes, limited trucks and fuel?
italian army had crappy weapons. The economy was too weak to support a war effort and they couldn't modernize fast enough. The only thing the italians excelled at was aircraft design.
The British Malayan command was in reality a paper force as the Indian battalions had been drained of experienced officers and NCOs to North Africa and the replacement officers could not speak Hindi or Urdu. The Australians were also raw, with little training and no action. None of Percival's forces had been trained to fight tanks and he did not have any under his command (some Matilda Is (Is, not IIs) were transferred in Jan 42. Jungle was training pretty muuh non-existent (same with the Japanese though). Both his subordinates Heath and Bennett thought they should be in command rather than Percival. Graziani was governor of Libya, Thomas didn't even want the lights of Singapore dimmed. Percival also has the East Asia HQ, so had a lot of staff and service troops and most of the SE Asian troops were in the labour and medical corps.
America also did in Philippines but had more
They underestimated them
No, the British overestimated themselves, lol.
@@USERZ123XD think it's fair to say they did both
@@grandadmiralzaarin4962 true
@@USERZ123XD ehh- i think they just forgot they sent all the useless officers to the orient.
Outstanding. Everything keenly and even-handedly explained and analyzed. Bravo!!
It’s actually more interesting to see vids about japan because not so much exist thx you for this interesting content I would love to see more about the Japanese military thx you for making good history vids keep up the work
so the british strategy was based on beliefs that the IJN were not capable of competence.
how would that ever be viable?
Or rather, what ever the japanese can come up with, we will still be better than them.
Alas, men still fall by hubris.
It worked in conquering India and China.
@@Edax_Royeaux India (or rather a large amount of smaller kingdoms) was subjugated mainly through politics rather than military conquest (though that certainly played a role).
China was hardly conquered by Britain. Certainly defeated in the opium wars, but not conquered. That honour goes to the Mongols.
Going into a fight with someone who has been quite successfully invading CHINA, of all places, for more than 4 YEARS and believing they are incompetent is not even arrogance, but either self-deceiving or sheer stupidity. In their place I might be entertaining the idea they might be OVERSTRETCHED, but incompetent? No way. That is an army of veterans by any standard. The US did not make that mistake in the Desert Storm (Iraq had been fighting Iran for 10 years before that), but even so the coalition lost more than 40 planes in spite of being victorious.
could you do a video on what the japanese thought about the soviet invasion of Manchuria?
Good video. Just waiting for Austro-Hungarian view on the KISS Army .
Interesting observation on the contrast in the British Army capability in the desert and in Malaya. Pre war desert commanders included Bernard Montgomery in Egypt and Palestine.
The British seriously underestimated how disciplined the Japanese were. Just like the Russians did in 1904-1905.
Sadly my country was largely moronic for much of the early war, the arrogance of being the perceived sole superpower of the time before the rise of the U.S and U.S.S.R
We underestimated the Vietnamese as well.
Great video! Russian and Japanese views on each other?
The Soviets kept a wary eye on the Japanese in 1937-1941 despite easily defeating them at Khalkin Gol in 1939..
The Japanese feared the Soviet armored divisions above all.
Greetings im from malaysia. Tq for this :)
Percival was the officer n charge of the firing squad that executed the leaders of the 1916 uprising in Ireland one can only imagine how the Irish felt about the loss f Singapore
My irish director said that a IRA commander had said once that Singapore wouldn't have fallen if the IRA had successfully killed Percival in the 20s :D
Absolutely delighted ;)
In his defence I don't think Percival was the officer in charge of the executions. If I recall he was on active duty on the Western Front (I'm not 100% certain so open to correction here).
However Percival was quite notorious for his actions in West Cork as part of the Essex Regiment during the War of Independence. As the intelligence officer he led the anti-guerrilla operations and prisoner interrogation - he has been accused of torture, beatings and inhuman treatment though much remains to be confirmed.
@@michealohaodha9351 I should think those accusations were true. I am currently rereading his book about the fall of Malaya. A few anti Irish sentences show his dislike of the Irish. Regarding the fall of Singapore, he was insane to deny Brigadier Simson his continued requests to build defences. Percival saying they were bad for morale.
@@yellowpete79 Agreed - on the balance of probability he is but strictly speaking nothing can be definitively tied to him. Still the Pat Harte case is indicative - healthy upon capture yet somehow suffers a traumatic brain injury during detention. Where there's smoke there's usually fire.
Considering Percival was over at the Somme in 1916 , I don't think the Irish saw much connection.
"Toodle-pip chaps, no worries than, those little bastahds can't even see in th-"
*BLAM*
Clever McGenericName lot be fair- *blam* is really hard to see though
😂😂😂
18:07 In dutch (at least in Belgium) we have the same saying.
6:50 "albeit" is actually prounced as "all-be-it" basically read it as "all be it".
@The Colonel I didn't use it? And there isn't a particular syllable he emphasized over the others?
I spy with my little eye a grammer nazi.
In the history of the British Empire the defeats by Japan in WW2 must count as the most humiliating. In the light of the death railway and prisoner experiences the troops surrendering at Singapore would have done better fighting to the death, they really had little to lose. Still easy for me to say that safe in front of my computer in 2021.
Just in time to add to Dan Carlin's new episode of Supernova in the East.
Certainly helps putting things into context regarding the British in the Malaya campaign and how they screwed up so badly.
It sounded like a lot of Commonwealth troops but they were defending a massive area so spread pretty thin, the Malay Barrier ran from Singapore through the Phillipines and Dutch East Indies to Darwin in Australia. While the bulk of the troops (around 80,000) were stationed in Singapore they were lightly armed territorial troops not geared up to fight a major power, for example the smaller Japanese force had 1/3rd more artillery pieces and twice as many trucks, the same number of tanks and twice as many fighters which were the latest model Zero while the Commonwealth forces had second tier Buffalo fighters (An obsolete US carrier aircraft ordered by the UK and Holland for Asian defence because it was cheap and could use short runways) they took out half the fuel and ammunition and installed lighter guns but the US planes still couldn't match the Zero performance.
At Singapore the British Empire outnumbered the Japanese 3 to 1. It was the Japanese that were spread thin.
The British had superiority in infantry but were vastly outnumbered in armour and aircraft. They were trying to defend an entire peninsula against possible landings while the Japanese were able to focus all their forces into two landings in the weakest defended area (the swamps) on opposite sides of the peninsula bridge, one was repelled but the other managed to be expanded into a bridgehead. The main reason the British fell however was their lack of artillery. They moved a couple of coastal guns but with no HE ammo they were firing large calibre AP ammo designed for sinking ships which was only effective against armour or infantry on a direct hit. They also improvised some AA guns for the role but when they ran out of ammo they had nothing capable of hindering the Japanese or counter battering their artillery fire.
…who told you they had tanks in Malaya? The commonwealth had no armor period there
@@looinrims They had Mark VI Light tanks, armoured cars and some APC's, about 250 altogether. 200+ anti tank/aircraft guns, 800+ artillery guns and about 15,000 trucks/cars in Malaysia, but most was deployed further north and didnt come into play during the siege of Singapore.
@@watcherzero5256 what units had tanks? There were no tanks in Malaya, I don’t know if armored cars was included in that statement but certainly no boom boom armored boxes
A combination of underestimating the Japanese forces and over estimating the ability of their own forces. brilliant.
The video is about the British view on the Japanese army, because the British view on the Japanese NAVY is from the bottom of the ocean.
A very nice video.
If ya'll like to deep dive into the subject even more, and broader, I can recommend Dan Carlin's podcast "Hardcore History", and his current project "Supernova in the East". As of now, it's 3 parts of about 4-5 hours each of very interesting discussion of the state of, and perception of, the Japanese before and during WW2.
Please do a video on the capabilities of the Danish army prior to the German invasion the 9th of April.
Do a vid on Yamamoto and "Churchill's Traitors Rutland and Sempil.
I think the British garrison had 'Holiday Posting' mindset where they thought theywod not see action in that part of the world. "Fancy a game of tennis after training old bean followed by a whisky at the club?"
That was where Britain sent all it's useless officers, yes.
I can't help but imagine how differently the pacific war would have been fought if the UK and the US had sent colonels to observe and advise the Chinese nationalists and other factions in the run up to the Japanese deceleration of war. Given their ranks maybe the information they were providing would not have been ignored. If information regarding how the Japanese treated POW's was widely distributed I suspect that Commonwealth forces in Malaya would have held out a lot longer or committed suicide given the barbarism of the I.J.A.
This is a great to watch in addition to Dan Carlin's Supernova in the East.
plus Churchill sent the tanks and planes to Stalin as a bit of a back handed gift... those tanks were important in stopping the conquest of Moscow, sooo….he lost Singapore, but probably stopped hitler
Actually those tanks arrived after the battle for Moscow, and were mostly used for training and in secondary fronts, so their overall impact was limited when it comes to operational value. However, it had a big moral value, as they were used by allied propaganda (both British and Soviet) to raise troops morale, for example in a speech on october 1941 Stalin said that "the western allies are sending us what they can. The Red Army must do it utmost, not only for our own survival but for the sake of the world! Soldiers, the world is with us!"
@@podemosurss8316 proof? it is stated up to 40 percent of tanks defending Moscow were British lends lease tanks. do you have a valid source that states they were used afterwards?
That seems unlikely given the tank production numbers of the powers involved in WW2.
British intelligence - and also American intelligence - failed terribly in Southeast Asia prior to WWII, not least because their leaders often looked down on the Japanese as an inferior breed and let them know it. That was why the early Japanese victories were such a surprise. In fact the Japanese had been planning the invasions for years and had many spies planted in the South East Asian region and even on Hawaii itself. Frederick Forsyth writes in his personal memoirs book "The Outsider" that in the late 1930s his father was the manager of a rubber plantation in Malaysia. There were Japanese workers in the area and they kept mostly to themselves. But one night Forsyth's father saved the life of the desperately ill son of a Japanese carpenter by rushing the child to hospital many miles on his motorcycle, at night, for emergency appendicitis surgery. Later, the grateful father appeared one night and told Mr. Forsyth that he was in debt with him for saving his child, but being a poor man, he could only pay with knowledge. And so he advised Mr. Forsyth to leave, leave Malaysia as soon as possible, if he valued his life. Mr. Forsyth wisely followed the suggestion and returned to England. Soon later the invasion began and none of the whites in the area were ever seen alive again.
*British Malaya/the Malay States.. Malaysia doesn't exist before September 1963.
@@eustache_dauger Correct.
This is a great story. I am touched. 😳
@Military History not Visualized Two points, firstly a large proportion of the British and Empire troops in Malaya and Singapore were not combat units, many (something approaching half) were second line supply units, etc. The Japanese figures are also misleading, since the Japanese received another full Division as reinforcements not long after the initial landing. Secondly the vast majority of the casualties the Japanese inflicted on 'British' forces were actually Indian units of the Anglo-Indian Army, many of them recently raised and half trained.
Wow, you seem to still have the same colonial views that led to the downfall of Singapore =P
@@100lancey It's rather how he says it, that the majority of casualties were inflected on the indian units, as if that doesn't really count.
Similair to how you some times hear some people blame the german defeat at Stalingrad, not on the germans for attacking the city, but on the 'lesser' axis divisions protecting the flanks.
If the argument is that thr Japanese largely outperformed the British army, casualties on the Indian army can to some degree be considered as less important - particularly when those troops weren't even properly trained.
The problem is, "Why were the British defending with mostly supply units?"
Why did they think this was adequate?
It's like going to a teacher and saying, "Listen, I always thought your class was easier than some of my other classes, so I wrote a half assed essay."
You don't call that kid a good student and then submit as evidence that "Yes, he got an F on the essay, but that's his half assed essay, so it isn't representative."
@@100lancey But that becomes a put down to the indians and making them a bit of a scapegoat, since we all know that it wasn't just the indian units that failed to defend Malaya and Singapore, but all british units.
And the fact that it was UK-british who were in command (and therefore responsible for the entire debacle), raises the question as to why green indian units suffered higher casualties than the UK units. Normally you only take higher than normal casualties when you're attacking or making a inflexible defense. As opposed to withdrawing, which came to represent a lot of the british manouvers during the campaign.
The dissolution of the Empire was already well on it's way when Churchill became Prime Minister. Nationalistic movements around the globe had made that inevitable and WW1 weakening the european powers sped up the process. Churchill's inflexible attitude to the Empire and his decisions during the Bengal famine didn't help either.
0:58 the 37,000 indians did betray the british and fought for the japanese under the command of azad hind leader Netaj Subose Chandra Bose
There are always outliers. If you regard the Australian General Vernon Sturdee (nephew of the British Admiral that defeated a German force at The Falklands in WW1) as broadly "British", you get quite a different view. By 1933 he was saying the Singapore strategy was likely to fail and that Japanese troops were likely to be more effective in battle than the British/Australians, at least initially, and predicted a likely attack on the US Navy at Pearl Harbour. He also recommended getting AIF divisions back to Australia to counter the Japanese, ignoring Churchill's insistence they offload at Burma (which would likely have been disastrous). He subsequently went to the USA; represented Australia to Marshall and the Chiefs of Staff. He returned later in WW2 and commanded operations of the First Australian Army, including in New Britain, Bouganville and Aitape/Wewak in New Guinea. These ops were very successful at using minimal force and resources to contain large Japanese forces in those areas, with Australian losses being far less than those inflicted by them.
Percival was gutless. The Japanese had run out of ammunition when he surrendered. This was the classic mistake of being blind to the enemy's [roblems while obsessing about your own. The best generals have always had a clear view of the difficulties facing the enemy general
A bit offtopic, but this reminded me of when my friends and I used to play Starcraft 2.
Very often, winning was a matter of persistence and tenacity and willpower; and understanding that even if things go badly for you, it's usually a minor setback and not a major one, and that your opponent may have struck a good blow in an offensive maneuver for example, but they've likely neglected their resource management and production because they were so focused on that maneuver.
Imagine teaching soldiers that they won't get lost in the jungle because if you are in the jungle long enough you develop a natural instinct that stops you from getting lost in the jungle.
You should do a video on Operation Masterdom, War in Vietnam (1945-46)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Vietnam_(1945%E2%80%9346)
British and (what was) I.J.A team up to fight Hồ Chí Minh's Việt Minh in French Indochina (Vietnam)
Very interesting and not talked about much.
13:50 This could describe German WWI stormtroper tactics
Chiang Kai-shek offered to send an army to jointly defend Burma when Japan declared war. But the British were confident and refused. When Singapore fell they changed their minds but by then it was too late. The Chinese army was marching into Burma at the same time as the Japanese. The British were hauling out to India and all the Chinese could do was cover their retreat.
They really didn't need Chiang Kai-shek's soldiers though, as they had plenty of forces already, and were fighting a defensive war with fortified positions.
What they *needed* was a competent commander to command said forces in some basic direction. Unfortunately, they were stuck with Percival.
@@TheNinjaDC I mean they could have sacked Percival...
@@TheNinjaDC After Singapore fell the British army in Burma panicked and withdrew in disorder instead of defending Burma. Had reinforcements been allowed to deploy earlier and had time to dig in the Indo-Burmese theater may have averted disaster. It became a huge ordeal later driving the Japanese out.
@@lovablesnowman they didn't have to after singapore fell because he was still in it, he sat the war out in a pow camp
@@TheNinjaDC Not in Burma. Percival was commander in Singapore. Wavell was the commander in Burma. And they definitely could have used the Chinese earlier.
Of nine Chinese divisions (each about a half to a third the size of a Japanese one) only 2 were able to get to the fighting in march.
The British army in Burma had been stupidly deployed right up against the Thai border. The Chinese had learned by this point that it's never good to be right next to a Japanese force, try to position at the Japanese objective and then fight them after they've had to walk for a week.
The British didn't do that and they got creamed on the border and again at the Battle of Sittang Bridge.
When the Chinese arrived, so did the American Joseph Stilwell. Both the Brits and the Chinese wanted to pull back and build a new line in Central Burma around Mandalay. Stilwell... who had zero command or combat experience against Japan... used his position as the representative of both China and Britain's most important ally to bully Chiang Kai Shek and Wavell into approving a plan that called for troops from Burma, India, China, Australia, and Britain, under joint US UK command to conduct an elastic defense and counter attack from a forward position and a week to prepare.
It was an insane plan that ignored the demonstrated Japanese capabilities and the limited capabilities of commonwealth and Chinese troops.
The whole thing predictably blew up in the Allies faces and Japan was ecstatic and surprised that the Allies had put all of their troops in South Burma where they could be smashed... The Japanese then took the opportunity to take the whole country... which hadn't been their original objective.
I always shake my head when I think about the British fiascos in Malaysia, Crete, Hong Kong, etc., etc., etc.... circa 1941 when I hear about how, during that same period, a good many in the British senior officer corps in Europe never missed an opportunity to openly remark for quite a lengthy time into the war how incompetent they thought the American Army forces and their leadership were following Operation Torch and the initial U.S. Army operational defeats in North Africa against German forces; somehow ignoring the fact, unlike the British, American military forces were generally a untested new force in 1942.
Granted, it didn’t help that meanwhile in the Pacific theater General Douglas MacArthur was doing just about everything he could in the Philippines to help prove that British opinion correct in 1941-42.
In one incident Australian troops had a couple of 25 pounders guarding a bridge on the Malayan peninsula. They were waiting to engage Japanese tanks. Instead the Japanese poured infantry across the bridge and river and simply over ran the positions. It shows how assumptions were made as to IJA incompetence. It also displays how Commonwealth troops failed to: mine the bridge, destroy their own artillery, barricade and booby trap the surrounds and generally have a retreat strategy. General Bennett also left the campaign by escaping in a fishing boat. His last active command.
Its more a case of assuming the enemy would think like you do. The charge of the light brigade cemented in the British psyche that you never charge artillery directly. Both the Japanese & British were pretty offence focused anyway.
"Wieso einfach, wenn es kompliziert auch geht." Where did this expression originate? I'd also like to know of similar expressions in other languages, if anyone knows.
Raise your hand if you're a malaysian and already read "Lieutenent Adnan" book
Asian countries: invade British empire's lands
British: you weren't supposed to do that
Japan: *Bombs Pearl Harbor*
America: Call an ambulance...But not for me!
You speak excellent English. Thank you for learning our language. I only speak a small number of German words.
Thank you! 😃
They saw the Imperial Japan was not up to European standards. But they didn't notice it was also not in Europe.
And neither were the British colonies.
The nucleus of Japan’s army can be traced to the assault on Port Author. The Imperial Japanese army development of infiltration was perfected in China. The British defense of Singapore served as a result of lessons learned.
Port Author??
@@dunruden9720 Thank you. My speech recognition program has auto correct.
Nobody underestimates the Japanese now. With good reason.
My favorite part was about over estimating your own abilities.
Watching this I was reminded of a comment about the English cricket team during one of its many extended periods of underperformance. "They suffer from a superiority complex".
As always the answer is far more complex than the generalisation that we are given in the history books. Not all British officers were sismissive of Japanese capabilities. Allied troops were of good quality, but with Japanese amphibious capability the Malay peninsula was thinly protected even though there were a lot of troops there. The Allies were ripe for defeat in detail - which they were. Percival surrendered when the water supply was destroyed citing civilian casualties. Considering how the Japanese treated the "liberated" civilian population Percival should have followed Churchill's orders and fought a protracted battle for the city. The Japanese did not have the resources to win a battle like that. The Americans made the same mistake. That said this is all 20-20 hindsight and the Allies did not realise how spent the Japanese were. They deserve full credit for their victory. They deserve scorn for how they behaved after they won.
I love this channel but why when Britain vs japan is mentioned on any history channel it’s always about Singapore never about the great victories in Burma such as Kohima and Imphal or the British Pacific fleet
Because there isn't as much available to access easily on those. The other is that they were largely fought by the Indian Army and not the British Army. Regardless of the numbers, the commanders of the forces being from the same country, the Indian Army was largely not held in as high a regard by British Historians or politicians because of a variety of reasons. Racism only being one of many parts of the equation.
Because this video is about what the british thought about the japanese and because of overestimating themselves directly lead to the defeat at Singapore?
TheCoyote808 there’s loads to access on Imphal and Kohima tons of books and there was plenty of British troops especially at Kohima which was essentially just a British battle and the battle was also British led fact is Singapore is like the battle of France humiliating so for some reason people ignore the achievements that happened afterwards
@@commando4481 My regiment's ancestor fought at Kohima, ever year we celebrate the battle with a massive party thrown by the Sergeants for the Corporals Mess. With that being such a big fixture in my calendar it's always weird when someone says things like "there isn't much available to access" or that it was fought by the Indians and not the British.
dernwine imo the greatest battle in British history makes me angry that most people don’t know about the battle.
Another fact about the British Army was that Emperor Hirohito was a Field Marshal in the British Army in the 1930s
Can you do a video on what the Japanese view was on Poland?
None. They weren't going to fight them anywhere in the world.
@@yewisemountaingoat528 Poland declared war on Japan as a result of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, together with other neutral countries. Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō's answer was following: "We don't accept the Polish declaration of war. The Poles, fighting for their freedom, declared war under the British pressure". And throughout the war, even though they were at "war" after 1941, Polish and Japanese intelligence collaborated against the Soviet Union
Warum afoch wenns kompliziert aa geht?
Wei's sunst ka spaas is!
Motto der Wiener Ämte.
I found it ridiculous that Japan would labeled equal to Italy as a European power equivalent, but if we're talking about competence and innovation aswell as other things than they would somewhat above the Soviets, the only thing the Soviets are better at is that they have more manpower and resources, yet after studying the Manchuria fueds it was easy to tell the Japanese had better smarts and spirit, the lack of firepower and armour really made the absence of Japanese potential clear.
In short British intelligent in Asia was a complete failure.
For Heaven's sake, stop falling into the "inferior Slavic hordes" mindset.
Zukov's Deep Battle strategy, as well as the stupendous success of the Soviet artillery, armour, and Air Force was what broke the Citadel, not sending soldiers into machine guns.
Soviets had more than merely manpower and material. They had the spirit to fight bravely and were capable to develop an effective operational art.
They thought the working conditions on the Burma railway were appaling.
So the takeaway from this, never underestimate your opponent.
They drink their tea green ‽
Japanese were harder fighters and had the morale advantage and were familiar with the jungle enviroment.
@Mial isus Australians were crucial to the massive fuck up that was the loss of Singapore. Something Australians don't mention often for whatever reason
@Mial isus The terrain in much of Burma and laya make the Australian 'hell' look like a fucking paradise. Australian Jungle is a light forest compared to the Malaysian or Burmese Jungle, and the latter two had ridges and mountains that rivalled even New Guinea. Burma and Malaya are AT LEAST as bad places to fight in as New Guinea, and all three places make the home grown Australian Jungle look like a well tended park.
You also conveniently ignore the little fact that 14th Army in Burma had virtually NO fucking ANZAC's, because they were all fighting in NQ, You conveniently ignore that the VAST MAJORITY of the Chindits, who took the fight behind Japanese lines were in fact Euro Brits (my Grandfather was one of the second Chindit Raid).
Many also ignore an inconvenient little fact about Indian Army Brigades, there were two types, an 'Indian' Brigade, which consisted of 2 Indian and a British Battalion, and a 'British' Brigade which consisted of 2 British and an Indian Battalion. In other words, at the LEAST, and Indian Army Division would comprise of a bare minimum of 33% British troops, more usually it was a 50:50 mix. The best Imperial Troops in Burma were, by far, the Gurkhas and the West Africans....
@@lovablesnowman Actually the British reported a complete breakdown among Australian troops, with reports of looting. Even the Australian General abandoned his men and hopped on a boat back to Australia to avoid being taken by the Japanese. Here is a recent quote "Claims of cowardice and desertion by Australian troops in Singapore surfaced in 1993 when a secret report by the British general Sir Archibald Wavell was discovered in London. It baldly said: "For the fall of Singapore itself the Australians are responsible."
Japanese were the only experienced & had doctrine synergy with URBAN warfare at this period. Their jungle skills was a hard won lesson. There was a reason they chose to beeline to the major cities.
Interestingly the worlds foremost experts in Jungle warfare with the most skilled specialists today is the British army. That is their 'preferred' environment now.
This really expanded on what we teach them in schools about how the British underestimated the Japanese
British were hardly the only ones, the Americans totally underestimated them as well... probably the only ones who did not were the Chinese and oddly, the Russians....
True but we won in the end.
The problem was less about the inadequacies of British intelligence, but how intelligence, however accurate and timely, was interpreted and filtered by British ethno-centrism, racial bias about white men's superiority over Asiatics' inferiority, complacency, hubris, self-deception, when senior British commanders did not want to alarm soldiers under their command in the name of keeping up morale.
It would be interesting to do a video about Japanese view of British army. This is because Japanese intelligence, e.g. about British military dispositions, fixed fortifications or strong points, state of preparedness for war, defence doctrine, etc. was better exploited to help Yamashita decide how best to capture Malaya (including Singapore) in the fastest and cheapest way possible, using only 3 instead of 4 divisions to implement his strategy of a driving charge, employing speed, surprise, tactical mobility, sudden and aggressive direct frontal assaults plus outflanking tactics day and night without giving his enemies any respite, and improvising on the move.
It was accurate Japanese army intelligence that ultimately led to confound and shock the British, not least Winston Churchill, as to how a numerically inferior invasion force could defeat a numerically larger force of defenders in 70 days, with Singapore's fall famously epitomized by Churchill's as "the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history".
The UK Commonwealth forces definitely had a rude awakening in December 1941 until early 1942!!
So did the Americans, and the Dutch, and the French.
It took them until early 1943 to get all of the sleep off their eyes.
@@villehammar7858 almost as if for the European Powers the Pacific was a side show.... even for the US on land it was far from the main effort.
@@dernwine You would think that after the umpteenth failed assault on the Japanese bunkers in Arakan at least the local British commanders would have figured out something was probably wrong with their approach, sideshow or not. I haven't read enough on the Americans to say anything about them.
@@villehammar7858 on the contrary. From the very beginning the British chain of command requested armour support to assault Arakan. Which was not available. Because the theatre was not a priority.
The nations fighting the British were all more motivated, more filled with life and a hope for the future and more inventive than the British.
The British were on the way out from the world theater. The Japanese thought of themselves as liberators of Asia from colonial yoke. The name they gave Singapore was the Southern Light.
can you do a video on what the german think about on the chinese army?
Well, they trained some battalions which did a number on the Japanese. All lost during a suicide mission to hold a useless city as commanded by a foolish leader.
subbed faster than the attack on pearl harbour
“See this video in which I still have hair“… Oh brother I feel your pain, like you have no idea 😞
I actually look better without it, in my opinion.
@@MilitaryHistoryNotVisualized agreed. Much better to just shave your head rather than cling onto a half head of hair.
lovablesnowman Naa I’m still in denial
The greatest enemy of an army? Hubris.
The British and even MacArthur were so stunned by the success of Japanese air attacks, they presumed that it wasn't possible that the Japanese were capable of it, let alone being able to fly a plane. They arrogantly thought it was German pilots flying the planes.
Percival and MacArthur got absolutely destroyed by the Japanese...These two commanders were responsible for the UK and US's worst army defeats in history at the hands of the Japanese forces.
Wait, Did von Falkenhausen steal your hair Bernard!? Those cunning Chinese
We got steamrolled in Hong Kong-
Commonwealth force was heavily outnumbered by the Japanese in Hong Kong (1:2), and considering defense in depth was not an option there, the defeat in Hong Kong was inevitable and not much of a humiliation comparing to that in Malay & Singapore.
Wilfred Tang 1:2 is not heavily outnumbered its the required ratio to even consider an assault.
@@adamanderson3042 Japanese were vastly outnumbered when they attacked many other places and won. And that is pretty ignorant of urban warfare. It is very easy to concentrate your forces in localised areas and outnumber a bigger force on a small scale over and over. Quite frankly Japanese had a huge advantage in experience of city fighting- & british doctrine was highly reliant on superior firepower & artillery support which can't be brought to bear in an urban environment.
As painful as it is to say, the main reason the British forces underestimated the IJA was pure and simple Colonial mindset racism. There was plenty of racism here in the US as well, helped by wartime propaganda, surviving long after 1945.
I'm not sure that is fully substantiated. Australian forces looting rather than holding the line, incompetent commanders sent to garrison duty in the colonies, inferior equipment rejected by everyone else, far more a case of all our talent have more important things to worry about. Britain knew full well other cultures could fare better than them. They fought the Nepalese, the maori, the zulus, the boers, if it couldn't beat them, hey, it hired them.
While racialist beliefs played their role, it certainly wasn't the main or even a major reason for British defeats. I can't really see evidence for them doing something like counting each Japanese person as half when evaluating their forces.
@@carbon1255 I think you can see British commanders in the East, pre-war, being quite dismissive of the Japanese. They were quite complacent in Singapore and believed sending a mere two capital ships to the theater would be enough to deter the IJN.
لا تتسرع بالحكم كيف تتوقع من بريطانيا تقاتل ضد ثلاث قوي عظمي في نفس الوقت وحدها مع بداية الحرب و تأتي اليابان لتعلن الحرب علي بريطانيا في منتصف الحرب . بريطانيا قبل أن تحارب اليابان و في وقت كانت تعاني من الحربها مع محور أوروبا سحبت نخبتها و عناصرها المدربة و أسلحاتها الثقيلة و معظم طائراتها و أسطولاها لمحاربة ألمانيا و لكن كانت تخاف أن تستغل اليابان ذلك فقررت إرسال متطوعيها و المقاتلين الغير مدربين إلي مستعمرتها في الشرق الأقصي مع تجهيزها بآليات لا تذكر و معدات أقل و تجهيز سئ و عدد أقل من الوحدات الرئيسية البحرية و لكن لم تنشرهم بريطانيا بشكل رئيسي للقتال بل بغرض صوري عن طريق إثارة الرعب لليابان لتجعلها تظن إن مستعمرات بريطانيا في المنطقة محصنة و هذا كي لا تدخل في الحرب معها و كادت أن تنجح بالفعل في هذا و لو لا تدخل عدو بريطانيا القديم ألمانيا حيث قامت بإعطاء اليابان وثائق و تقرير سرية و حساسة عن نقاط الضعف الحامية في الشرق الأقصي خصوصا في الملايو حصلت المانيا علي تلك الوثائق عندما ما أستولت عليها من باخرة إنجليزية في المحيط الهندي حينها علمت إن فرصة دخول الحرب سامحة لها و قد أثر ذلك علي اليابان علي التخطيط لدخول الحرب و الهجوم علي الأسطول الأمريكي في المحيط الهادئ
Please tell me that Percival was court martialed for cowardice and surrendering to an opponent inferior in every way?
Given the brits they probably gave the fool a medal.
@yeoldebiggetee If I remember correctly, MacArthur had the same (greater numbers) and he ended up losing as well.
@@Katzbalger001 Indeed this but SHHHHHH that upsets the American WW2 narrative.